Hannah Francis

Micro-blogging platform Twitter has long been criticised for its failure to control abusive content posted by its users, especially directed at women.

From the barrage of trolling that preceded Charlotte Dawson's suicide to the horrific images sent to Zelda Williams following the death of her father, comedian Robin Williams, Twitter's dark side surfaces all too often.

It will escalate these reports up the chain at Twitter, as well as monitor and evaluate the network's responses by analysing data and, in conjunction with Twitter, taking steps to improve processes.

WAM! executive director Jaclyn Friedman said the organisation was "thrilled" to be working with Twitter to make women's user experiences safer.

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"I can't guarantee what will happen" in terms of reforms, she said. "But I can say that the interest from Twitter has been very committed and very genuine."

Ms Friedman cited a recent Pew study which found women were disproportionately targeted by the most severe forms of online abuse, with a quarter of young women having been sexually harassed online, and 26 per cent experiencing stalking online.

"The disproportionate targeting of women online results in them removing their voices from the public conversation," Ms Friedman said.

Zelda Williams said she was removing her Twitter account "for a good long time, maybe forever" after trolls harassed her on Twitter.

Others, like Anne Hathaway, have been more defiant in the face of cyber-bullying, with the actor recently telling Harper's Bazaarshe had "grown" from the experience.

WAM! has already succeeded in persuading Facebook to crack down on gender-based violence with a campaign that used the hashtag #FBrape.

Friedman, a prominent feminist author and activist, is no stranger to online abuse herself, and said there were gaping holes in Twitter's abuse-reporting process.

The social network lacked the resources to review abuse reports in a timely manner, she said, potentially leaving credible threats unanswered for too long.

Twitter's definition of abuse is also notoriously narrow, and it hasn't kept up with the ever-evolving tactics of the site's worst trolls.

It has become common, for instance, for abusers to circulate fake quotes or photos of a victim, the better to rally vitriol against her.

They sometimes build networks of sock-puppet accounts to continue tormenting the same victim once their other accounts are removed.

And if a user is attacked by many dozens or hundreds of trolls at once - not an uncommon occurrence for high-profile women - there's no way to report that abuse en masse.

Instead, the victim has to fill out a lengthy form for every single person who tweets at her. That form was recently overhauled, but it still takes a couple minutes to fill out.

"They aren't capturing the full scale and context of abuse," Friedman said. "There's a lot of nuance to the tactics that abusers use. And right now, Twitter doesn't account for that nuance."